@_K_C_ | Feb 18 2021 5:28 utc | 78
Using your links and data, Texas has nine (9) electricity producing dams [mostly late 1930’s-1960’s era] with a nominal combined total output of ~*563 MW*.
Compare with Texas’s total (2019) summer MW electrical generating capacity: 125,000 MW.
Wind (unwinterized): ~21,000 MW
Nuclear: ~5000 MW (4 × 1250 MW reactor units).
So yes, hydropower in Texas IS barely a blip. [0.45%] on their overall energy generation picture.

Posted by: gm | Feb 18 2021 12:47 utc | 104

vk @ 102

The presence of SOEs doesn’t define a “mixed economy”.

I never said it did and your subsequent ramble still doesn’t change the fact that South Africa is a mixed economy,

Posted by: Down South | Feb 18 2021 12:49 utc | 106

@ Bemildred
You get it.
When everyone works, and the bosses want to make problems, it’s time to replace the bosses, after all, they have no problems replacing workers, why should the bosses be exception?
From that logic on, it’s VERY HARD to justify private companies.

Posted by: Smith | Feb 18 2021 13:09 utc | 108

Trying to figure out how this was banned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f15HhiHQNpw

Posted by: Dogon Priest | Feb 18 2021 13:53 utc | 110

@Stonebird | Feb 18 2021 9:18 utc | 90

Interesting link about climate. The NASA graphs (2 at the bottom) imply that we are on a generally falling temperature period.

They are not NASA graphs, but yes we are most likely on a falling trend rather than the opposite. The link was to the Spotless Days page of SILSO in Belgium where the official international sunspot count is being managed. Sunspot counts is a measure of solar activity, where few spots mean low activity. Counting spotless days in a solar cycle transition like now is a way to predict the coming solar cycle peak activity.
http://sidc.oma.be/silso/spotless
As a side-note we have just entered solar cycle 25, likely to be characterized by very low solar activity.
http://sidc.be/silso/node/167/#NewSolarActivity

December 2019 confirmed as starting point of the new solar activity cycle
The reference date and amplitudes of the minima and maxima of the 11-year solar cycle are established on the base of the sunspot number maintained and distributed by the SILSO World Data center since 1981 at the Royal Observatory of Belgium.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 18 2021 14:02 utc | 112

Free market frolics:
Confusion over local hotel price gouging: some 3 star hotels charging $1,000.00 a night

Posted by: vk | Feb 18 2021 14:50 utc | 114

norecovery @ 80
well said
Like a parasite we feed
A horde that strips the landscape clean
Taking more than what we need
Common sense surpassed by greed
The end of Eden’s on the rise
Selfish Wanton Apathetic
Hastening our own demise
Watching while the planet dies
A mistake of cosmic proportion
An experiment gone wrong
A disappointment to the Ones that made us
Sad to see what we’ve become
Ego’s slave to acquisition
Permanent Spiritual Malnutrition
We have more than what we need
the few will hoard while the many bleed
Like a cancer we have spread
Consume the host until it’s dead
No thought No mind for the hive
Without us it might survive

Posted by: ld | Feb 18 2021 15:19 utc | 116

Texas disaster
Looking forward to the reports that reveal many and/or dire warnings made to deaf ears.
A feature of most American (capitalist) disasters.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Feb 18 2021 15:52 utc | 118

9# Down South
Thank you for this post.As some beginning of an answer I say this:
Isn’t Monsanto OGM big in India?The whole scam-scheme of those companies is getting the land from debt-ridden peasants.Like the banks in Europe own virtually all agricultural land because there is not one farmer who owns his stuff and land.Remember nazi-Gates buying american territories lately?

Posted by: willie | Feb 18 2021 15:54 utc | 120

RE: “Trying to figure out how this was banned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f15HhiHQNpw ”
-Dogon Priest | Feb 18 2021 13:53 utc | 112
What? Flag-waving Black [& White] Deplorables doing a Rap/Celtic fusion video? What next? Cats and dogs living together?
It must send the wrong *unifying* message the ‘divide and rule’ Overlords’ narrative managers find to be counterproductive?

Posted by: gm | Feb 18 2021 16:14 utc | 122

@ robie | Feb 18 2021 16:12 utc | 123
That’s a valid point. Thanks.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 18 2021 16:41 utc | 124

So foreign politics expert Joe Biden is deemed unable to make the serious contacts with the foreign placekeepers.Mrs.Harris talked a long time with Macron.
Weighing the fact that she has no international experience at all in that domain I safely will assume that with her in charge of the USA monsieur Macron is playing the role of instructor ,and that the coaches of both world-stage actors feel no pain in making believe the french president that it is him Jupiter Macron (Le Grand Monarc in several quatrains from Nostradamus’ Centuries,for those who like to talk astrology,haha) who is showing the guidelines for the USA under this presidency to develop.Once a Jesuit always a Jesuit It’ll stick forever your life especially in highup the ladder spheres where Hùbris is an easy manipulator.
Macron got some criticism for talking english to Harris,in stead of french and both sides translating.

Posted by: willie | Feb 18 2021 17:02 utc | 126

James–
“Is natural gas less polluting than oil?
Natural gas is a fossil fuel, though the global warming emissions from its combustion are much lower than those from coal or oil. Natural gas emits 50 to 60 percent less carbon dioxide (CO2) when combusted in a new, efficient natural gas power plant compared with emissions from a typical new coal plant”

Posted by: arby | Feb 18 2021 17:20 utc | 128

karlof1 @7 – that presser after the Finland minister’s visit was extremely interesting, brief as it was. It enabled Lavrov to make careful distinctions between Europe, of which Russia is part, no question, and the EU. There are still connections with the latter body, but I thought the expression launched by a previous poster was informative — the EU is a cartel, not a nation, or even a federation of nations. Similar now that we in the US have put the oligarchs in charge, to us.
Between Finland and Russia there is a small island monastery that will be in preparation for Lent — we had the first of the preparatory Sundays this last weekend. That one is the small story of the small rich man Zacchaeus, who had to climb a tree to see Jesus over the crowd. Interestingly, he’s a rich tax collector, so you have to pair this event with the story of the rich man unable to enter the eye of a needle camelwise. Zacchaeus gets there,just by climbing a tree. [Luke 19;1-10]
I love Lent and Easter because the entire of Orthodox Christianity is in unity for these services and readings, those on both western and eastern calendars. No separation!

Posted by: juliania | Feb 18 2021 17:31 utc | 130

@ 130 arby… thanks for the fine print… either way – it still can’t be called ”clean”… cleaner then oil – yes… but there are other cleaner options too..

Posted by: james | Feb 18 2021 17:38 utc | 132

@arby | Feb 18 2021 17:20 utc | 130
CO2 is not “pollution” in any shape or form.
The Earths atmosphere contains CO2 as a trace gas only, 400 parts per million, of which essentially all is entirely natural. 400 ppm is too little for efficient photosynthesis, that is why you can buy CO2 generators to put in greenhouses.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 18 2021 17:41 utc | 134

@james | Feb 18 2021 17:39 utc | 135

well you can fuck off with the virtue signaling bullshit norwegian

Just explain why you think some gas is “clean” and some is not and we will all be happy. But now we are down to name calling and profanity it seems.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 18 2021 17:47 utc | 136

vk@102
“‘Meddling in Russia’s judicial affairs’: Kremlin blasts ‘unlawful’ ECHR verdict on Navalny
Could some European here explain to me why does the ECHR keep insisting with this kind of bullshit?
Russia is a sovereign nation, the ECHR has no jurisdiction over it.”
Your question is bloody stupid, Russian Fed. is a member since 1998 like 46 other eur. countries, has it’s own judge on the panel
Dmitry Dedov Russian Federation Judge
Born on 22 February 1967, in the city of Novograd-Volynskiy, Zhitomir oblast, USSR
Studies in law, Moscow State University, Law school, 1984-1991
PhD, Moscow State University, Law school, 1994
Expert at the Russian Constitutional Court and the Russian Government, 2000-2005
Docent and Professor, Moscow State University, 2004-2010
Head of the Legislation department, Russian Supreme Commercial Court, 2005-2008
Doctor of law, 2006
Judge, Russian Supreme Commercial Court, 2008-2012
Professor, Center for Transnational Legal Studies, London, 2010
Judge of the European Court of Human Rights since 2 January 2013.
The judges are elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from lists of three candidates proposed by each State. They are elected for a non-renewable term of nine years.
The human rights convention protects the rights of more than 830 million people in Europe.
All 47 Council of Europe member countries have signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a treaty designed to protect people’s human rights and basic freedoms.
Governments, parliaments and courts in each country are mainly responsible for upholding the rights set out in the convention.
However, the European Court of Human Rights acts as a safety net. Individuals can bring human rights complaints against any of the 47 member states to the court in Strasbourg after they have used up every possible chance of appeal at the national level.
If the European court finds that the applicant’s human rights have been violated, the country concerned has to provide justice to the individual. It may also have to take steps to make sure that the same thing does not happen again. The actions taken by the national authorities in response to judgments from the court are supervised by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers.
https://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=home
Russia may just leave the ECHR and so expressing it’s total disregard for any international binding human rights charta.

Posted by: thomas | Feb 18 2021 17:57 utc | 138

Why China, with same size of power grid, won’t suffer outage like in the US

“Why does the US use the winter storm as the excuse every time?” Shu Bin, director of the State Grid Beijing Economics Research Institute, told the Global Times on Thursday, noting that the power grid system is very vulnerable and requires constant maintenance and upgrade.
A report from the US Department of Energy (DOE) in 2015 said that 70 percent of power transformers in the country were 25 years or older, 60 percent of circuit breakers were 30 years or older, and 70 percent of transmission lines are 25 years or older. And the age of these components “degrades their ability to withstand physical stresses and can result in higher failure rates,” the report noted.
[…]
“The US has no nationwide power grid network allocation plan like China. When it encounters extreme weather, a state won’t help another state like some Chinese provinces and regions do with flexible allocation plans,” Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Thursday.
[…]
“China uses 50Hz across the country, like the country has the same heartbeat,” he said, adding that China has never experienced such a scale of blackouts as the US.
[…]
China has mastered the top technologies such as “UHV transmission” and “flexible DC transmission” and started the strategic “west-east electricity transmission” and “north-south electricity transmission” projects, which in turn offer an opportunity for the development of the country’s western region.

Posted by: vk | Feb 18 2021 18:40 utc | 140

The demise of education within the Outlaw US Empire is reviewed by Philip Giraldi. As one who went to college to obtain a teaching credential at the end of the last century, I’m appalled at what’s taking place and agree with most of Giraldi’s criticism. The failing educational philosophy and associated system along with the continuing debilitation of its infrastructure is rendering the Outlaw US Empire less competitive daily. The ideological indoctrination now occurring differs little from what the USSR, Cuba and China were all accused of during the Cold War, although those nations continued to graduate highly competent scientists and engineers–and it must be admitted that class leveling is vastly different from the historical distortions of the USA’s public school system that was caused by racial and nationalist ideology AND class.
I must point out one big mistake by Giraldi:
“Those poor results must be placed in a context of American taxpayers spending more money per student than any other country in the world, so the availability of resources is not necessarily a factor in most school districts. [My Emphasis]
I don’t know where he got his data from, but historical funding inequities are very much at the heart of the matter–why the hell was bussing and the attempt to desegregate seen as such huge issues?!?! What was the basis of the Brown v Board of Education case from the 1950s?!?!
IMO, the enemy being aimed at is wrong. It’s all about Class and the never-ending Class War that has used the artificial concept of race to divide and rule for 300+ years and continues to do so.

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 18 2021 18:45 utc | 142

Posted by: thomas | Feb 18 2021 17:57 utc | 140
That is precisely one of the articles ammended in the constitution of the Russian Federation, article 125 point 5.1.B. I’ve searched for it in English without success. In it is clearly stated that the laws of the RF take precedence over foreign court’s resolutions. That is one of the reasons why the amendments of the constitution were so deeply critized by the West, the MSM centered the attention in one single point, the possibility of VVPutin being reelected in 2024, but never mentioned other very important matters.
Besides, I still have not heard of any European court prosecuting the Azores trio, Bush, Blair, Aznar and the one that smartly avoided the picture, Barroso. It would be hard for you not to agree that the crimes commited by that gang are a lot more serious than many other judged by what could be called colonizers courts, since it is always African or defeated in war subjects who are judged, and sometimes to no avail like the Milosevic case. Or the US soldiers that shot dead a Spanish journalist by the name of José Couso, whose extradition was denied by the US.
Equal justice for all, that sounds like utopia and finally the Russians are smarting up and straighten out the big mistakes commited in the 90’s, like allowing Harvard boys to write their constitution and apply their shock treatement to the economy, it cost them dearly. But better late than never.
By the way, the World Court condemned the USA for its illegal war against Nicaragua in the 80’s, and nothing happened, so let us not cry with an eye because a US agent by the name of Navalny is facing Russian courts, embezzlement and what is a lot worse, insulting repeatedly a war veteran. Plus, I have the feeling that a new indictment for treason is on his way.

Posted by: Paco | Feb 18 2021 18:48 utc | 144

@karlof1 #12
The author(s) of that article are both deluded and wrong.
Texas’ problem isn’t climate change related, nor is it due to “right wing” ideology.
The central US is flat as a board. Cold air can slide all the way down to Texas trivially – which is why Texas has horrendous thunderstorms when this cold air hits the warm Gulf air. Thus periods of extreme cold in Texas are *not* so unusual.
When I lived in Austin, I remember a day where the temperature dropped 40F in 3 hours – and the ensuing ice on the ground led to 500 car accidents in 1 day.
Far more likely, the problem is that focus in Texas in the past few years has been on windmills. Texas has installed enormous amounts of windmills and added all manner of extra grid reach to accommodate these devices – it seems 100% clear now that normal maintenance was neglected in favor of this buildout.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 18 2021 19:10 utc | 146

@robie #123
Indeed.
I have no problem with funding research to find ways to produce energy that is *both* cleaner and cheaper – and to switch to it when this happens.
The present push to have cleaner (questionable) and more expensive energy is nothing short of war on the poor.
Willis Eschenbach wrote an amazing article – years ago – We have met the 1% and he is us
I urge everyone to read it and think about what it is saying.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 18 2021 19:19 utc | 148

“Interpreting US ‘democracy, human rights and freedom’: Global Times editorial.” I just now read some of what the self-ousted Texas mayor said to his citizens, and while appalled I’m not at all surprised:
“Tim Boyd, the mayor of Colorado City, Texas, said in a post to the public that ‘No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you nothing!‘
“He also wrote that, ‘Only the strong will survive and the weak will perish,’ and he even said that ‘this is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the few will work and others will become dependent for handouts.’ Boyd later resigned as his remarks had provoked public anger, but it seems that he really believes in what he posted, and so do many American politicians.
“From the perspective of an outsider, the logic of the tragedy of nearly 500,000 deaths due to the COVID-19 epidemic in the US so far and more than 20 people being killed in the winter storm in Texas are the same. The logic is that the attention of the capital and the government has not been directed toward the protection of human rights. The capitalist system in the US has derived a set of national morals that deviated from the public interest and has gradually become flashy but useless.” [My Emphasis]
I hope thomas @140 reads this. The Global Times editor’s words bear repeating:
“The capitalist system in the US has derived a set of national morals that deviated from the public interest and has gradually become flashy but useless.” [My Emphasis]
Essentially, the clock’s been turned-back over 100 years as the editor notes:
“The US’ concept of ‘freedom’ actually conceals the cold-blooded proposition of the ‘freedom of being eliminated.’
The US’ notion of ‘democracy, human rights and freedom’ is actually a combination of ‘elections, political rights and social Darwinism.’ As such, it comes as no surprise that various human tragedies often occur in such a wealthy country as the US. To live in the US, you must have the strength and capability to save yourself in the event of a disaster, or you should be able to pay a considerable amount of money for the help you seek. Otherwise, you deserve the miserable situation you are in, and it’s more worthy for you to pin your hopes on charitable organizations and God, instead of the government.” [My Emphasis]
That’s what the state of things was prior to the Great Depression when the national government was finally provoked into providing the most miniscule of safety nets, termed “Automatic-Stabilizers” to satisfy the Predatory Financial Class with the promise that the business cycles of boom and bust wouldn’t be as harsh as previously. That a particular segment of the Political Class has sought the elimination of that safety net since its inception verifies the editor’s thesis as he continues:
“Boyd portrayed the government’s assisting the victims as ‘sadly a product of a socialist government.’ This reflects how much he and many other American politicians like him feel contempt for government’s efforts on people’s livelihood. Whether they will survive or die in the face of natural disasters is the public’s own business and it’s not worthy for US governments and officials to protect people’s lives – Boyd’s words are really shocking.
“Such a US should stop preaching to China on human rights. The US and China have different political focuses. What China seeks is the health, safety and happiness of its people, while the US wants to see political rights orderly distributed among social elites in a capitalist manner. The human rights outlooks held by China and the US are based on different groups of people. Different rights are positioned in different places in the two countries. As a result, China’s human rights construction has brought tangible benefits to all Chinese people, while the US human rights view is more suitable to be used to brag about and as an ideological tool to launch attacks against others.” [My Emphasis]
Ex-mayor Boyd reminds me of the fictional character Frank played by Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West, for whom any means can be used to gain the outcome. Such characters were once very visible in movies made about the USA–the sociopathic killer always aiming for A Fistful of A Few Dollars More where even the good guy was ugly. I couldn’t agree more with the editor’s closing comment:
“Washington, please take care of your own people in the freeze and put an end to the deaths caused by COVID-19 first thing first. We may not link these issues to human rights, but this should be what ‘America First’ is all about.”
The personification of Boyd passed away yesterday and is much to blame for the woefulness of the USA’s moral condition. Unfortunately, there are too many creatures like him, many of which are in governments throughout the land.

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 18 2021 19:21 utc | 150

@ Posted by: c1ue | Feb 18 2021 19:15 utc | 149
The Fireball model (i.e. that the planet will linearly get warm as greenhouse gases fill its atmosphere) only works in a planet without a large body of water – which is not the Earth’s case.
Since the Earth has a large ocean, it will go through a sequence of extreme weather before it irrevocably gets overall hotter.

Posted by: vk | Feb 18 2021 19:22 utc | 152

@146
you’re wrong and it’s the usual line of defense by people desperately trying to justify autocratic and dictatorial behavior of that right wing religious fanatic, the kleptocrat Putin.
Article 79 now states that decisions by “intergovernmental institutions” that contradict Russia’s constitution cannot be implemented. And this despite the fact that Article 15 of the Constitution further provides that “principles and norms of international law” are part of national law and have priority in the event of a conflict. The reason is that Article 15 is in a basic chapter that could only have been changed in a complicated process; Putin, however, had his reform implemented in a tailor-made procedure, so that there was only room for relativization further back in the constitutional text.
After the Strasbourg judgments in Navalny’s cases in the years before, Russia paid him tens of thousands of euros in compensation and reimbursement of procedural costs.
But the criminal judgments against Navalnyj, which the ECtHR classified as arbitrary and unfounded, continue to apply in one form or another: a 2013 conviction for alleged wood theft was overturned after a Strasbourg intervention, but re-enacted verbatim. In the “Yves Rocher” case of alleged fraud, for which Navalnyj was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison after a decision in early February, the judgment challenged by the ECHR simply remained in force.
Because these sentences serve to keep Navalnyj out of “legal” political life; the reference to them thwarted his candidacy for the presidential election in 2018. It is even hidden from viewers of Russian state television that the ECHR has (not only) judged Navalnyj in this matter.
So it’s just one fascist fighting another one, and the fascist with the power of the state is generally in advantage…

Posted by: thomas | Feb 18 2021 19:23 utc | 154

Re:Dogon Priest | Feb 18 2021 13:53 utc | 112 et al
Although I like the rhythms but generally can’t stand the verbals of the genre (hip hop yes, rap no, so to speak), and as that one started with the ubiquitous “uhh!”, I was not anticipating enjoying it, and as it played out it just got worse – makes me look around for a US flag image I can put in the toilet before I evacuate. I straight away thought of the Kissinger quote “Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” The comment section is an array of morons – ignoranuses. The comment at the top was by someone called “My Favorite Groomer” – that name says it all, that is if you know a synonym of “groomer”.
“Smedley Butler! You fuckin’ fools!” is all I can say.
Meanwhile, in my country – https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/436571/new-zealand-troops-to-be-withdrawn-from-afghanistan-by-may

Posted by: tucenz | Feb 18 2021 19:26 utc | 156

james and Norwegian,
Hi there,have a drink;
or maybe you’ve had both one too many already.Times are tough,our masquerade fatigues and we get irritable ’cause curfew remains.Open up a window,breath profoundly and get a cold.
Gas is cleaner than Oil,because burning of gas pushes less particles up in the air than burning oil.Oil is cleaner than heavy crude,because it spouts less particles in the atmosphere if burnt.I suppose burning wood is considered pollution because it spouts more particles in the atmosphere.Oil burning is more clean than coal burning,for the same reason.None of those are clean really in comparison with fresh air and in regard to newborne babies’ideal living conditions.And then even fresh air is loaded with some particles like dust from the desert,mushroom spores etc.Even viruses it is said.All this without counting the pollution caused by the digging,mining,transporting etc.Don’t let semantics fool you.
I hope you don’t mind my intruding,lately I have not been very social,but it annoys me deeply to see two persons much appreciated by me get into a senseless row in a public house,Bisous!

Posted by: willie | Feb 18 2021 19:28 utc | 158

@james | Feb 18 2021 19:23 utc | 157

i frankly think you are a bit fucked in the head, but – you’re correct – no need to name call

Right, quite some consistency there. That kind of reaction is not improving the impression of your arguments. No, you didn’t answer any questions, because you didn’t define what defines something as “pollutant”, referring to mainstream assertions is not an answer. A constructive answer would be to explain why something is “pollution”. And yes, this is rather to resolving the climate “debate”.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 18 2021 19:36 utc | 160

“Macron got some criticism for talking english to Harris,in stead of french and both sides translating.”
Posted by: willie | Feb 18 2021 17:02 utc | 128
Mais, non non non! Zee cunning frenchman, Le Grand Monarc is just trying to use the known seductive power of english with a french accent. Note, Harris is an older woman and as a frequenter of “the shrine” https://www.factmag.com/2015/10/15/fela-kuti/ Macroni is probably no misogynoir-ier,

Posted by: tucenz | Feb 18 2021 19:52 utc | 162

Natural gas is less polluting than petroleum because it is a gas and petroleum is at bottom a slurry of pollutants, including lots of chemicals of all sorts, sulfur, metals, you name it. The “less CO2” part is much less important. Refining takes a lot of the “bad” stuff out, but it doesn’t all just disappear, and what remains is still carcinogenic and poison. Natural gas starts out with a lot less crap in it.

Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 18 2021 19:52 utc | 164

Re:Posted by: tucenz | Feb 18 2021 19:52 utc | 164
Pardon , my (batarde)french!

Posted by: tucenz | Feb 18 2021 19:57 utc | 166

“Suite to; Norwegian | Feb 18 2021 17:59 utc | 141
…………..Unless Scientists come up with a way to read tea-leaves, the future will have to remain unreadable.
Posted by me: Stonebird | Feb 18 2021 19:22 utc | 155
Sorry. couldn’t resist this. I wrote it a very long time ago – I even had to find a way to open a no longer supported Mac software.
Earl Grey Tea
I tried my future to see
in the bottom of my tea,
the dregs and leaves left below
would tell me which way to go.
I swirled the brew three times about
and the liquid tea I threw out,
then peered into the brown-stained cup
that recently had been filled up
What vision appeared before my eyes
from a fortune teller that never lies?
Just a little bag, but what does it say
– “here is the finest Earl grey”
Great joy did fill my heart
at last the reward for all my art!
I’ll be ennobled like an ancient lord,
Give me my helmet, wench and sword
Put the wench on the left arm, sword on right
(or if the sword is left, hold the wench real tight).
Grandly lording over commoner and peasant
is good for the ego and rather pleasant
But what do I see, – a piece of string?
(Of this will come no good thing)
A winding road, brown and soggy
leads into the future, long and foggy
Climbing up the white cliffs of china
of my mug, as I have nothing finer,
it reaches the lip, edge of the unknown,
leaps over the crack and starts down
But for all descents there is an end,
Can this paper square be my friend?
Or will “Sir Thomas Lipton’s net weight”
be the one to seal my fate?
Not this time, as with heroic haste
I throw it into a bin for waste
then put the mug back in it’s place,
– so the future can leave no trace
(The next pot of tea – I’ll drink
rather than throw it in the sink)

Posted by: Stonebird | Feb 18 2021 20:45 utc | 168

thomas the “Tool”!
“Tool”!
Back in “The Day” it was common to say he was “tooling away”
She told me she was “tooling” him so she could ride his motorcycle.
Today I say it just another way to describe a troll.

Posted by: doesitmakeanydif? | Feb 18 2021 21:33 utc | 170

thomas #140
The greatest problem confronting the ECHR in the Navalny pantomime is that of being presented with evidence that is determined by people with a high potential of bias and even malice. Any prosecution or hearing that is based on evidence from people with mala fide (in bad faith) is fraught with erroneous judgement UNLESS the procedure is doubly cautious in testing every presentation. One can’t know for certain unless one reads the entire transcript.
So far (from the snippets in press) I can see that there might be good reason to doubt anything from the German Military labs, from the lady with the drink bottles, from Navalny the peripatetic pharmaceutical carrier/consumer.
Considering the entire story is premised on a less than 2%er political figure directly funded by foreign sources to seek power in a nation under propaganda and economic siege (and failing miserably at that) THEN the court will need to demonstrate some credible evidence as to how the Novichok failed to infect every passenger and crew in a closed circulation plane cabin.
Or are we to believe that Navalny has the balls within his underwear to absorb it all?
The ECHR court is being asked to give legitimacy to state propaganda and black ops. This is a very sad downfall from ethics and common sense. But it certainly won’t bother the EU in perpetrating its pernicious game.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Feb 18 2021 22:00 utc | 172

James @ 129:
You do yourself no favours by simply assuming that electricity is “clean” compared to natural gas. Comments by Arby and Norwegian suggest they realise you are out of your depth in discussing issues relating to fossil fuels and alternate energy sources with respect to the by-products of their use in generating electricity. Saying that electricity is “cleaner” than natural gas gives your lack of knowledge away: electricity is not a fuel source, it is the energy that can be produced by burning natural gas or coal, or by water flows through turbines, or sunlight hitting and activating cells in solar panels.
In Australia, 75% of electricity is produced by power stations burning brown or black coal. We happen to have a lot of coal and coal production is still cheaper than other forms of energy production. Plus the Australian government under John Howard (1996 – 2007) did not invest in developing solar or other energy technologies and we have been left behind by other nations.

Posted by: Jen | Feb 18 2021 22:17 utc | 174

vk #154

Since the Earth has a large ocean, it will go through a sequence of extreme weather before it irrevocably gets overall hotter.

Or colder.
There are volcanoes that go bang, meteors that splat on our surface, each creating immense low atmosphere dust cover that blanks out the sun and chills the planet. Sometimes short and sometimes long duration so the mammals and flora diminish. The Younger Dryas period of 1200 years was mighty cold and unexpected. Take a browse here to consider the possibilities.
There are humans that do high tech war and high tech chemisty and high tech biology fiddling and build leaky Germ Warfare Laboratories like Fort Detrick. So expect surprises to the continuity theory of the human climate change situation.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Feb 18 2021 22:24 utc | 176

@ Posted by: uncle tungsten | Feb 18 2021 22:24 utc | 178
Yes, eventually it will get colder again (Snowball model). But then you’re talking about hundreds of millions of years later, and by then the homo sapiens will for sure already been extinct.
Just remembering: extreme weather won’t kill humans by temperature per se, but by hunger, as it will kill agriculture all around the world – the homo sapiens will die out much before we will be able to go to the beach in Siberia.
–//–
@ Posted by: c1ue | Feb 18 2021 19:34 utc | 161
The “frozen windmill” hypothesis seems very unlikely to me.
First of all, because no country ever sacrifices already existing energetic capacity to install another one. For example, China produces a record quantity of electricity through solar and wind. But it didn’t stop consuming coal, gas, hydro and nuclear: they’re just using wind and solar for diversification. Because that’s what wind and solar are nowadays: a supplement. Texas didn’t stop burning coal and gas so it could have windmills, that’s for sure.
Now, what you may tell is that the Texans are consuming more electricity per capita than ever. But that’s another problem.
Second, investigation shows the problem were frozen gas pipes, not the windmills. Empiric evidence tells us wind is not the problem, but a crumbling infrastructure.
Third, the Green New Deal was from 2018/2019, and is essentially a Democratic fabrication. It doesn’t exist yet. To tell Texas – a red State – is some kind of pioneer on green energy is not credible.

Posted by: vk | Feb 18 2021 22:45 utc | 178

Paco @181–
The pathetic attempts to confirm Sainthood onto Navalny when he’s clearly one of the Devil’s men is just beyond–outré, is more precise. What does that then make those who make such attempts? It shows they are further Devil’s men and not at all in control of themselves. Tools are used; they don’t use/operate themselves. Trolls are also tools. There are many of those here that are made to look like they control themselves but ultimately they remain tools. Too many are treated as humans. I once fought them as Don Quixote fought the Windmill, but no more; and I very seldom engage them unless the attempt to distort is too deceptive and must be addressed.

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 18 2021 23:49 utc | 180

“Agreed, but ideology in this country and elsewhere has its focus 100% on CO2. And that is a 100% failure.
Oh, so now you want to talk about ideology.
Also, in saying “this country” do you mean Norway?
It is nothing like 100% in favor here in the USA, even with the Mighty Wurlitzer(tm) running full blast, it’s a big argument. There is very little at this point we are not divided about. Hating Washington DC maybe.
Thank you for your comment.

Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 19 2021 0:00 utc | 182

S @185–
Devastating rebuttal! I remember those photos and news item. Of course as Putin well knows, the big problem is the geological process of soil generation making the region’s land arable which is far too slow versus the rapidity of the changing climate. I noted his meeting with the Security Council today focused on fallout from the Climate Crisis–massive fires and flooding. It’s a shame the entire discussion wasn’t transcripted. Even TASS omitted any mention of the meeting. Clearly, there are no ready solutions to those problems aside from minimizing the cost, particularly of the fires since they usually develop in the vast roadless taiga which hinders access to firefighters.

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 19 2021 0:36 utc | 184

‘Serbia rape camps,’

Ex Yugo was balkanized.

‘Ghadafi’s viagra driven goons’

Libya was turned into a shithole

‘rape camps in Xinjiang’

With Fatou Bensouda replaced by an englander at ICC, may be Xi would get a summon from the Hague very soon.
BUt heck,’
Do you know that its legit to rape Americans… in broad daylight. ?
Fuck ICC, never mind R2p,
All you need are friends at high place.
GUess what happened when three American nuns and a religious volunteer were kidnapped, raped, and murdered in El Salvador.

US government investigators did not interrogate commissioned officers in command, some of them trained at the US Army’s College of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga.
UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick said at the time, “The nuns were also political activists.” [the bitch !]
Secretary of State Alexander Haig testified on Capitol Hill, “Perhaps the vehicle in which the nuns were riding may have tried to run a road block.”

https://archive.commondreams.org/view/022500-104.htm
jeeze, YOu just couldnt make this shit up !

Posted by: denk | Feb 19 2021 4:03 utc | 186

Younger Dryas that is.
The temperature anomaly at the end of the most recent ice age was discovered by scientists taking ice core samples. The science here is reasons free of dispute or challenge afaik.
There are othe gross indicators of meteor strikes with rare metals layered on ancient ground surfaces.
The volcanic episodes are reasonably well recorded and the Santorini explosion some 3000+ (?) years ago abruptly terminated the enlightened Minoan culture IMMEDIATELY. It would have had devastating famine effects throughout the northern hemisphere. It was the biggest volcanic explosion since the most recent ice age. Seriously consider my previous link. It is science, not quackery.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Feb 19 2021 5:02 utc | 188

@Jen | Feb 18 2021 22:17 utc | 176
Thanks for that comment, you got it right.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 19 2021 6:36 utc | 190

@uncle tungsten | Feb 18 2021 22:24 utc | 178

The Younger Dryas period of 1200 years was mighty cold and unexpected. Take a browse here to consider the possibilities.

Thank you for linking to Antonio Zamora! His information is ground breaking and should be mandatory study for everyone, because it changes US and world history in a radical way and at the same time it provides a much more realistic understanding of what the major effects on climate are (it is not CO2).
The Younger Dryas began ~12800 years ago (not 1200) with the comet fragment that hit the Laurentide Ice sheet over present day Michigan, generating secondary hits from giant ice boulders over the whole North America. The proof is found, as Zamora explains, in the Carolina Bays along the US east cost and the Nebraska rainwater basins, they are elliptical depressions after the ice boulders hit, making it possible to triangulate the source of the primary impact (Saginaw Bay, Michigan). It also put ice crystals into earth orbit that took 1200 years to dissipate, causing an overall earth temperature drop -15C. THAT is climate change.
This is extremely interesting all by itself, but the implications are much more far reaching. Obviously, the ice boulder bombardment killed the north american megafauna (it wasn’t the evil Clovis people) but some of them also dropped into the sea, creating enormous tsunamis (biblical floods anyone?). Also, we have concrete signs all around the world of advanced megalithic builders that probably predate the Younger Dryas and simply got wiped out (ref. Olmec heads/Mexico, Sachsahuaman/Peru, Giza/Egypt, Baalbek/Lebanon, Petra/Jordan, Gobekli Tepe/Turkey, Several places in India, Angkor Wat/Cambodia, Plain of Jars/Laos, Easter Island/Chile, and many more).

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 19 2021 7:04 utc | 192

Norwegian above.
Yes that Clovis BBQ legend was always a drunks tale. They would have been the most obese people ever had it been true.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Feb 19 2021 7:36 utc | 194

Norwegian #191
C8 is a persistent carcinogen waste from the manufacture of teflon for coating cookware.
It has permeated the subterranean water tables across the USA and its river systems. It is responsible for a wide range of cancers and maladies in muscles and fish and mammal consumers. It is a plague of monstrous proportions on the people unleashed by DuPont and the regulators and Congress. More insidious than the persistent organochlorines and organophosphates.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Feb 19 2021 9:41 utc | 196

Daily Caller @DailyCaller
At the beginning of the town hall, President Biden claimed he didn’t have a vaccine when he came into office.
The first shots occurred on December 14 and one million doses were being administered per day when he took office on January 20.
[VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1361870706687037442

Posted by: Mao | Feb 19 2021 11:21 utc | 198

Steven Cheung @CaliforniaPanda
“Minorities… don’t know how to use, know how to get online.”
@JoeBiden is perpetuating a racist trope that minorities don’t know how to use the internet.
[VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/CaliforniaPanda/status/1361864216509091840

Posted by: Mao | Feb 19 2021 11:34 utc | 200